After gaining popularity in the U.S. West, the Walbridge apple had all but disappeared in the past century – until last fall.
Since 2015, researchers have been trying to locate the remaining Walbridge trees, many of which have since succumbed to modern monoculture orchards. Jude Schuenemeyer of the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project is part of the team working to preserve the apple’s history and prevent its extinction in Colorado.
“These are trees that are still growing in the landscape here. They didn’t go extinct and have to be rebuilt in a laboratory,” Schuenemeyer said. “They’re still here.”
From the outset, researchers with the restoration project committed to documenting apple varieties and cataloging the existing genetic makeup of orchards in Montezuma County. During their review of historic records, the Walbridge apple appeared repeatedly.
“One of the things that kept coming up in the county fair records over and over again here in Montezuma County and across Colorado and across the West was this apple called the Walbridge,” Schuenemeyer said.
Based on his research, Schuenemeyer determined that the Walbridge was as popular as the Honeycrisp in the early 1900s, planted in the thousands throughout the Pacific Northwest and Intermountain West. The apple was renowned as a hardy winter variety, resilient and able to be preserved for the colder months.
“They’re not that great off a tree. They’re still starchy, they haven’t fully ripened,” Schuenemeyer said. “So you need to put them in storage, and then around Christmastime, when all of your fall apples are no longer any good, then you start pulling out these winter apples, and they taste better.”
According to Schuenemeyer, advances in refrigeration technology led to the loss of the diversity that once defined historic orchards and edged out many formerly prominent apple varieties.
“When controlled atmospheric storage came out in all of the refrigeration, that knocked out the winter apples,” Schuenemeyer said. “People were like, ‘You don’t need to plant all of these other ones. We just need Rome’s, Jonathans, maybe some Golden Delicious and Delicious.’”
The team’s first major breakthrough occurred more than a decade ago outside the Western Museum of Mining and Industry in Colorado Springs, where two Walbridge apple trees were producing fruit for the museum’s seasonal ciders. From there, additional trees began appearing in other locations.
“We found six trees on the San Juan National Forest, just outside of Durango. Those trees are at least 120-something years old. They have not been irrigated in 20 years, probably, and they are still alive,” Schuenemeyer said. “It talks enormously about the resiliency of these and how tough a variety they are, that they can withstand that.”
Schuenemeyer, who has been among the few to taste the apple in contemporary times, said its crisp, tangy profile makes it well suited as a snack or as a base for cider. Beyond appealing to fruit tree enthusiasts, he said the rediscovery could also prove valuable for agricultural research during an exceptionally dry year.
“It also, for us, is meaningful because of the impacts that they have for the future, that these are trees that can survive in this harsh climate for a long, long time,” Schuenemeyer said. “If they are here after 120 or 130 or 140 years, they have proven a great adaptability to here. And that’s incredibly important for us.”
The trees have also been located in Washington and New Mexico, with the majority of the remaining crop believed to be in Colorado. While the Walbridge’s future remains uncertain, Schuenemeyer said he is optimistic. The next step is to preserve and protect the remaining trees, then propagate them for reintroduction into modern orchards.
“That’s our big push this spring is to make as many more of these trees as we can and then make as many available to the general public so they can take it out and start planting them,” Schuenemeyer said. “The more we scatter these around, the better chance they have of surviving.”
Then, perhaps someday, consumers could begin seeing the apple on grocery store shelves again.
“I think that people, as they have it, will love it,” Schuenemeyer said.
avanderveen@the-journal.com
